


Withering Rose

by ConcerningCrows



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/F, Purple Prose, at least one vampire, is this a gothic romance?, pining and poetry references, tags and characters added as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 00:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19452382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConcerningCrows/pseuds/ConcerningCrows
Summary: Reclusive and eccentric novelist Rose Lalonde is dying. She knows this acutely, but there is little to be done. Rose knows there's other ways to keep living, in the hearts of loved ones, in memories, in a legacy, and maybe that's a kind of immortality. Still, she's never been one to back down without a fight, even if she needs someone around to take care of her. That someone is Kanaya, a mysterious stranger sent by her brother.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a project I wanted to do for fun. Mostly as a way to get back into writing and I'm not sure how long or if I'll keep up with it, but maybe one day I'll actually finish writing a fanfic. I'm expecting the chapters to be fairly short, but I'm going to aim for 1k words at least for each.

I was unsure how it would end, my life that is, even considering the degree of consideration which I had given this particular inevitable prospect. I would’ve surmised a valiant ending on the fields of sacrifice, a Boudicca in a different age, facing down insurmountable odds in a glorious flaming act of defiance. Perhaps though, my flame burns too low now and that fading light serves only to embolden a looming dread shadow inching across the dark room, an erstwhile specter which taunt me in their obfuscation, moving closer and closer whenever I dare to turn away. It is the shadow of my own death that haunts me, a haunting funeral procession of my own thoughts while the girl in the casket screams that she has not yet died. In my mind I know the future will be barred to me, made as a blackened nothing, a void through which I cannot find my way, and through which my piteous flickering light sheds only shades. In my heart, it is only the oblivion that terrifies me.

That time to judgment runs thin and I find myself firstly preoccupied with the remaining moments. If I am a flame soon to fade, a match struck against the vast black tapestry of this universe only to become smoke and ash dispersed within it, then I shall not fall quietly into darkness. Let me become as Oisín in the land of youth and have my moments be made longer in my longing, and grant me muses, gods, and spirits the time to carve for myself my own immortality. Grant me time, grant me time, grant me time to cast out the shroud and make for myself some proof that I have lived.

My brother visits me often, perhaps in compassion, or merely our mutual appreciation for the passage of moments, and we talk and take tea, well mostly David talks and I drink the tea. It’s a rainy day while we’re rehashing the same conversation we have for months now.

“I know you’ve got an aesthetic going on here being all creepy living in mom’s old house, but it would be easier for me to take care of you in the city. Plus, we could really capitalize on those rumors that my sister is a witch; I’m sure we can spin it to up sales”

“Who be I to deny Mr. Strider, stock market mogul entrepreneur, philanthropist composer an opportunity for even greater publicity? We could even save on train tickets with how much steam is in your head.”

“Rose that joke wasn’t even a little funny and you’re still somehow the illest person in the room. Not ill like my records, but ill like bad, like consumption ill, Rose you’re really sick and I’m worried about you and I don’t even want to finish this bit because I’m that worried.”

“Would it make you feel better if I hired a servant, a maid to help with the upkeep and fly off to alert you of each careless cough that slips my lips?”

“Actually, yeah, she’ll be here tomorrow.”

“You’re incorrigible David. I was joking and you know it. I value my independence.”

“Joke or not you and this place are both a mess”

Punctuating that assertion he pats the sofa cushion, releasing a cloud of dust which brings about a fit of coughs. He cracks the window with a mumbled apology, bringing in damp clean air. A breeze slips through the parlor, rustling papers I’ve strewn about, carrying with it the smell of spring rain and the flowers of the wild grown garden, by any metric it was pleasant, and that smell which passed my lips and settled in my lungs brought me a small pleasure, a moment of secure passing satisfaction. 

We were silent for awhile. Not the easy silence we could sometimes share, but a silence of expectation. It was an invitation to challenge him and refute what we could both plainly see, to object and rail against what was best for me. If I bit back with a petty excuse or shifted the conversation it might win me today, but it would be a childish contrarian act. This wouldn't be especially out of character of course, but it betrayed some amount of the gravity. We both knew he was correct and that I'd been trapped into a corner. He wouldn't let this slide, even if I out talked him now it would be a constant fight during each visit and letter. Dave was scared and who could blame him? He's watching me die and it's killing him too. No, better to concede on this front, grant him some amount of solace even if it still eludes me. I have better hills I could be dying on and it would at least mean less cooking.

"You've already hired someone. I suppose it would be rude to turn her away."

"The rudest. A travesty of polite company really since she's been paid for the month already."

"And of course I must maintain my reputation as a polite lady." I think I deserve an award for saying that with a straight face. Dave gives me a congratulatory guffaw, a high compliment from a Strider and their ice smooth facade, not that a Strider has ever been able to hide anything from a Lalonde, extra cool or not. "So, David who have you hired to coddle and care for my decrepit invalid self? Surely, there was a robust interview process"

"A robust interview indeed, surveyed all the most promising pubs and houses of ill repute, even the local asylums brought out their best for this prestigious position. Nah, actually it's Karkat's sister."

"Your business partner who I question you actually do any official business with?"

"Rose, that's cruel. We got all kinds of official business between us."

"Official business" I repeat " _Official Business"_ I punctuate with a level of eyebrow wiggling that would surly earn me yet another theater award should my skills become widely known. Truly, I am underappreciated.

"I'm not even going to acknowledge that implication on the nature of my _very_ professional relationship with my professional business partner. I'm going to _not_ acknowledge it so hard it'll be like it's the illegitimate son of the conversation we send overseas to get a cultured boarding school experience while we pretend he was never born and pressure into joining a monastery to disinherit him. We're going to not acknowledge that rambunctious display of eyebrow wiggling that much."

"Dave I understood none of that except that you agree my eyebrow skills are underappreciated" 

"Oh totes. Top notch eyebrows, bet you need to pencil them in to get those sick moves. Uh, sick like good, not sick like you, like, uh... anyway Kanaya is coming tomorrow"

"Her name is Kanaya then?" I tasted the name and how it settled on my mouth. A foreign name, obviously, Karkat was a dark eastern man himself, so this was unsurprising, yet I found the name pleasing to form, delicate like a single word poem. _Kanaya_.

"She's a recent immigrant, Karkat is still helping her get the paperwork finished, and I figured this would be an easy arrangement for the both of you. She's a good girl, likes to clean, real pretty, basically raised Karkat. Maybe that last part was more of a dis, but I think you'll get along fine."

  
I spent a moment in thought, considering.The room really was profoundly dusty. A grime coated the windows and painted the light hazy as it drifted into the room, all aside from the dazzling shaft that trespassed where the window opened. It had come up slowly when the illness did, signs of a home unkempt, the rooms all moldering in disuse as I crept between my bed and desk and kitchen and privy, until I had a dozen forgotten tombs to choose from for the corpse I was so readily preparing. It probably wasn’t especially good for me, but there was little I could do. I know Dave was right, no matter my protests. Karkat was nothing if not an earnest man and if this Kanaya had their support, it could hardly hurt.

"I look forward to meeting her"

And that was that, as they say.


	2. Eurydice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose writes. Rose has gay panic and regular panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose is a relatable protagonist. She has trouble writing. She is filled with existential dread. She is gay.

The blank page taunts me. I can’t commit ink to paper; it feels like a sin to mar the perfect white sheet with anything less than the perfect mark. My pen hovers over the paper, miming out each line, to each letter, to each sentence, to each paragraph, writing and rewriting in my mind’s eye, unwilling to move that last vast centimeter and scribe my words for fear of imperfection. I am paralyzed by the potential of immortalizing any phrase.

Did Orpheus struggle for poetry to bite back the darkness? When he climbed down into the underworld, very literally on the shores of oblivion, did the Muses abandon him or was it their compensation for his bleeding heart? Perhaps his muse was his own making, a solemn weeping thing of sorrow in the shape of Eurydice and she granted the him the music that would bring all the world to tears. They say the great artists find inspiration in pain, their suffering is an ink fit for the finest lines and oblivion is just a blank book. Though I am no Orpheus I face down my own end, but in it I find only grief. Where is the inspiration, did I not love enough to give my grief weight? I tighten my fingers along the pen, gripping and squeezing like I might juice my ambrosia from it. It's nothing. My Eurydice remains shackled because I cannot string the words to lull her guards. I am no Orpheus. The pen is a dead thing I cannot rouse.

I sigh and lean back against my chair, the cracked leather yielding and cradling me. It’s a hollow sound when I let out my breath, a shallow sigh like a gently closing door. This wasn’t always so hard. When did I become so stilted, so mired in this turmoil and consumed with self-doubt? How can I be so preoccupied with the use of my time and so afraid of its misuse, even as each moment passes unbidden and my hesitation turns moments into hours? I run my hand over the wood of the desk, cherry, oiled dark and smooth, and smelling of nut and dust. It feels so much bigger than when I first bought it, when I first sat here, when I first wrote and published, or no, time hasn’t made a trick of perspectives. I am simply smaller. I curl in on myself, suddenly chilled.

Dave is downstairs somewhere, if I strain I can hear him through the shifting floorboards, perhaps in the parlor, maybe in the guest bedroom he stayed the night before. Karkat and Kanaya would be arriving soon. I should play the host and receive them, or at least change out of my dressing gown. The blank page draws my eye and it taunts me. There’s emotional associations with colors, all authors know that, red is passionate, blue is solemn, black is grim, and white is pure, but I’ve found white to be a kind of black, both are voids containing nothing, and everything, and both threaten me with their infinity. It’s enough sometimes to rise from bed, to drag a blanket to the office, and sit before the blank page, but not now. There have been too many blank days. I snatch up the pen and scrawl a line. It’s messy and splattered a scar of black across the white, stark in its defiance. This is a definitive chapter, an important development for the protagonist; I’ve got to get something down. In the end I’m huffing, tired, a single sentence has drained me, but I have conquered it and made the void my own: “This shall not be the end” a victory banner written in hideous inelegance. It is the perfect line.

It’s easier afterward and the words flow like the ink they’re made from. I fill one page, then two. This will be the last novel for the series, my penultimate work. I face down my darkness with a key to Elysium; I need only finish forging it. I’ll edit later, for now I write, pouring my grief, my anger, my love, my ink over the paper. I’m going to finish this even if it kills me. It’s the last book and the finale must be a fitting ending for us both. When Dave comes to fetch me, my fingers are bruised and ink stained and I feel alive.

He leads me to my room where I dress simply for the day. It seems to silly to dress now when Kanaya will probably see my dressing gown tomorrow, but first impressions are important. I can't make it seem like Rose Lalonde is a flighty broad living in her own destitution, too unbothered or too wretched to even dress herself, that's a conclusion they'll need to come to themselves later. Until then, I dress as a lady in grey and pale lilac, with a brilliant violet ribbon round my throat, and I try to ignore how loose my sleeves are and how the waist billows around my middle even when I garrote myself with the belt. I am like an old woman, but the only thing grey about me is this dress and it is the only thing that will ever be. I idly wonder how this would impact my standing in a cultural cult centered on youth and beauty, to be young and still pretty, for the moment, but thin and wan. In the mirror I see a waif; I am an Ophelia with all her herbs and I see her brook reflected in my eyes. Thankfully, I've already proven myself more relevant. As if Rose Lalonde would be reduced to a plot device. 

Karkat and ,presumably, Kanaya are in the garden. I can see them through the windows as I move through the house. Karkat is small and sharp like shattered flint, stomping about raging like my lilies have personally offended him. He's probably just tired of waiting. I can see Dave next to him looking bemused, utterly charmed. It brings a small smile to know their _official business_ is so successful. Dave worries for me, but what sister wouldn't worry in turn: So closed off, too cool, so above it all, that's how Dave wants to be, inside he's really very soft and really quite fragile. At least someone will be taking care of him. There's a woman sitting on the low stone wall circling the roses, her face hidden by a fashionably large hat. I can see the green line of her dress just brushing the patio, and her small hands folded in her lap. 

The clouded french doors creak when I push them open, a fitting herald for my arrival. I step from the shadows and the sunlight washes over me, soaking and painting me in golden heat, melting down the ice that clings to my bones. I raise my hand to shield my eyes against the brightness. It is nearly too much, I feel faint and flush, hot beneath my layers. The day is glorious, a stunning display of New England spring, perfumed from the garden flowers. A wonderful day full of possibilities, perfect for introductions, I think idly, but perhaps a tad too warm. I spy Karkat off to the side, silent at once for my entrance, with a pained and paled expression. Really, it can't be that bad, I walked down here myself. I dressed myself, surely that counts for something, I've gone through quite an effort to appear presentable, yet Karkat looks at me like a man seeing a ghost. Though, maybe I was ambitious when I told Dave I didn't need more help... perhaps I should sit for a moment

I search half-lidded for a patio chair, I know there's one here somewhere. The sunlight gilds everything and I'm blinded by it's cloud. Where's the damn chair? Maybe I said that aloud, I can't be sure, but I see a shadow moving to aide me. Dave has the damned chair, clearly. He's really not as good under pressure as he thinks, but Karkat is completely useless so it must be Dave. Stop fussing already, just let me sit Dave, stop just give me a minute to catch my breath. I'm hardly going to immolate, I'm just a little warm. David so help me God I will end you and no one will uncover your remains if you do back off.

Much like how all good comedy is lost on Karkat, suddenly all sense of balance is lost on me. I'm aware of the ground as it rises to meet me, the flagstone patio, hot even through my shoes, has made arrangements to meet my face. I have just barely begun to accept this horribly embarrassing introduction when I hit something. It's not the flagstones, though it might be just as hard. The substance yields and buckles, cradling me securely in it's stony cool embrace. I am no Orpheus, but at this moment I may be Eurydice at her sun drenched wedding, where the underworld opened beneath her and warm fields became grave cold rock. I don't think this is the death, my death comes in small bites, it will now swallow me whole, but this is a terror. It is too bright, I am too warm. My vision grows dim and I wilt.

The veil parts like curtains, a haze of white splitting as I look into the desperate sapphire sky. I can see a woman's face blocking the noontime sun, her dark hair touched by a gold crowned halo, at once covering me with her shadow and setting me to bask in her light. In defiance of Newton gravity has abandoned me and I float above it all, held aloft by the euphoria, the palpable heat and the vision of this beauty eclipsing the sun. Or not, rather, held aloft by this beauty's strong arm, her embrace keeping me from the jealous stones. Her lips move and I see them as dancers on her face, fluttering in their cinder red skirts and lewdly flashing the white beneath.

I'm faintly aware of voices, then I'm simply faint.


End file.
